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Author Topic: Dining halls versus inns  (Read 1283 times)

Zeebie

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Dining halls versus inns
« on: July 25, 2023, 02:38:15 pm »

Do you set up both a dining hall for your dorfs and an inn for visitors? If there is no dining hall set up, will my citizens use the inn for eating and such? I often overlap the two just for thoroughness but I know that decreases room value, so I'm wondering if there is a more elegant solution.
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Goldbeard

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Re: Dining halls versus inns
« Reply #1 on: July 25, 2023, 05:50:03 pm »

I start with only a dining hall. I sometimes add an inn, but only after I'm set up so it's not in the core of my fortress. It'll be inside my outer line of defense but have a way to close it off from the rest of my inner fortress.

I've never done inn-only, so I can't answer that question.

I've only recently started to play around more with putting small offices near key craftsdorfs' workshops so they can eat meals right there. Remember to put a table in, even though offices/studies are designated from chairs. Or you can put offices near bedrooms. That's easier to remember and track, but there's no particular need for them to be adjacent as far as the dwarfs are concerned.
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Salmeuk

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Re: Dining halls versus inns
« Reply #2 on: July 26, 2023, 02:05:01 pm »

your dwarves will do fine with just an inn. the difference in 47.05 was between meeting areas, and meeting areas designated as inns. but now we have a separate category of 'dining hall' which can also be designated as an inn. I do not think there is a significant difference between the two zone types.
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A_Curious_Cat

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Re: Dining halls versus inns
« Reply #3 on: July 26, 2023, 10:56:54 pm »

your dwarves will do fine with just an inn. the difference in 47.05 was between meeting areas, and meeting areas designated as inns. but now we have a separate category of 'dining hall' which can also be designated as an inn. I do not think there is a significant difference between the two zone types.

FWIW, you could also make a tavern/inn from a dining hall in 47.05 (and even earlier).  This had two advantages.  First, taverns/inns made from dining halls weren’t subject to the 31x31 max size restriction that ones made from meeting halls were subject to.  Second, if you made your tavern/inn from a dining hall, then people would also eat in it.
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Zeebie

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Re: Dining halls versus inns
« Reply #4 on: July 27, 2023, 01:43:35 pm »

your dwarves will do fine with just an inn. the difference in 47.05 was between meeting areas, and meeting areas designated as inns. but now we have a separate category of 'dining hall' which can also be designated as an inn. I do not think there is a significant difference between the two zone types.

FWIW, you could also make a tavern/inn from a dining hall in 47.05 (and even earlier).  This had two advantages.  First, taverns/inns made from dining halls weren’t subject to the 31x31 max size restriction that ones made from meeting halls were subject to.  Second, if you made your tavern/inn from a dining hall, then people would also eat in it.

What does it mean to "make a tavern from a dining hall"?
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A_Curious_Cat

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Re: Dining halls versus inns
« Reply #5 on: July 27, 2023, 01:59:07 pm »

your dwarves will do fine with just an inn. the difference in 47.05 was between meeting areas, and meeting areas designated as inns. but now we have a separate category of 'dining hall' which can also be designated as an inn. I do not think there is a significant difference between the two zone types.

FWIW, you could also make a tavern/inn from a dining hall in 47.05 (and even earlier).  This had two advantages.  First, taverns/inns made from dining halls weren’t subject to the 31x31 max size restriction that ones made from meeting halls were subject to.  Second, if you made your tavern/inn from a dining hall, then people would also eat in it.

What does it mean to "make a tavern from a dining hall"?

(Assuming you’re using 47.05 or earlier (not sure how it’s done in 50.1+ as I haven’t played it yet…)) you (q)uery the table that the dining hall was created from.  You should then see an option to create a tavern/inn from the dining hall.
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BlueTrillium

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Re: Dining halls versus inns
« Reply #6 on: July 28, 2023, 12:30:13 pm »

And in Steam/50.09 version --

A Dining Hall is a 'Zone' (other examples of Zones are meeting halls, bedrooms, pastures, and tombs, etc).

A Tavern is a 'Location' (other examples of Locations are temples, guildhalls, etc.).

You can only create a Location by creating a Zone first, and then adding a Location to it (with Steam graphics, using the little shield-shaped button in the Zone's info window). So you can create a Dining Hall Zone, and then add a Tavern Location to it. Since you must have a Zone in order to create a Location, there's no issue with 'overlapping' them, value-wise - they are effectively the same place.

The benefit of creating a Tavern from a Dining Hall Zone is like said above, dwarves will eat there (otherwise, with a Tavern created from just a Meeting Hall Zone, they will only drink at the Tavern - well, and dance (if there's room) and sing and tell stories and such).

What does cause value drops is overlapping Locations - e.g. having a Meeting Hall sharing a footprint (floor tiles) with a Dining Hall.

If you want to add additional 'facilities' to your Tavern/Inn - you can link multiple Zones to the same Location. So you can create a Dining Hall zone and link your Tavern to that. Then you can create some bedroom Zones and link them to the Tavern location as well, and voila - your Tavern has bedrooms for 'rent'! (Though at least right now, regular residents of your fort will still claim those rooms, rather than leaving them for visitors to use, haha).
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Zeebie

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Re: Dining halls versus inns
« Reply #7 on: July 31, 2023, 08:40:01 am »

Ah, thanks BlueTrillum - I didn't quite understand that.
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Chief10

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Re: Dining halls versus inns
« Reply #8 on: August 25, 2023, 05:18:49 pm »

Also something to consider: Visitors can sometimes be werecreatures. They can come to your tavern peacefully and then transform at the end of the month. In the Steam version this has actually been the main source of danger for my forts, more so than sieges or anything in the caverns. I've started being pretty strict about separating dining halls and taverns because of this.
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